Borg
"We are what you wish to be. Man evolved, perfected by Machine." :- Blessed be the Harbinger The Borg , also called the Collective, are a pseudo-race of cybernetic beings from the Delta Quadrant. A hive mind complex there isn't individuality or the concept of independent thought, everyone exists within the Collective Consciousness (C-Consciousness), which is a state of being and the avenue of which the hive mind is interpreted and influenced by the Borg King. Originally, their goal was a question for perfection, assimilating countless worlds in an effort to correct that which they thought was flawed. Now however, with the influence of the Borg King, the Collective now no longer wish to correct, but simply cut out the infection by means of conquest; keeping only that which gives them strength. Their technology has been the bases of many elements within Star Trek Eternity; the Legacy, the Eternity, and the Followers of Nero to name a few. Physiology The physiology of each Borg drone is varied according to the species of which was assimilated into the Collective. The base structure of a drone is humanoid and bi-pedaled, however, in regards to giving the Collective strength, a willingness to assimilate non-humanoid species/lifeforms remains present. The bases of life within the Borg Collective is that of it's blood, the nanomachines, which carry not only their ability to augment and implement themselves with implants and variable fixtures of purpose (i.e. assimilation), but also the memories of the previous Collective all the way back to the origins of the species. Very few are able to interpret these memories or, therein, understand them. The process of assimilation renders a drone to cease growing body hair and develop an ashen grey skin hue. Augmentation of the subject's blood begins as white blood cells are destroyed and further augmented. Internal implants and mental relay activation nodes are created as well as a neural link to the C-Consciouness. From there the subject is placed into purpose for the Collective wherein further augmentation and implants are attached ether by separating limbs from the subject or, modifying present appendages. A drone is equipped with personal shielding, the muscle fibers are extensively grown, and personal armaments are implanted. With the recent adaptation of the Borg, when the race was nearly destroyed in 2376, the physiology of the drone was optimized, catering more to the Machine than to the Organic. Bones were metaled, organs were taken out, the process of assimilation catered more to augment the brain before the body. The body was nothing more than implants, attachments, flesh pulled across metal rather than metal fabricated over flesh. More than half a subject's body is replaced. Under the guidance of the Borg King, the Collective began to specialize themselves in conquest. Warrior Drones, Assault Drones, and further were made into the fold, giving a striking contrast from the slow lumbering drone of the past. Warrior drones wielded weapons, enhanced personal shield generators, devastating munitions and incredible strength and durability. The Assault Drone were fast, agile, and experts in melee combat. Partial assimilated fodder, the Husks, were always left in the wake of the conquered as a means of "salting the soil." These Husks cater a purpose to consume energy, both biological and chemical, attracted by it. Liberated Drones are far and few between in number, as most are deemed unworthy or disconnected by the Consciousness are killed ether by the process or destroyed by the Borg. Those that survive and are not destroyed are driven mad by the lack of connection with the Collective. However, those within the Resistance have found a method of evolving themselves beyond the need of both the connection of the consciousness and the necessity for regeneration. History The Harbinger "Blessed be the Harbinger" "The initiation, a change. A precursor" :- Blessed be the Harbinger The Origin of the Borg, now understood through the interpretation of the lifeblood, stems from a race of machines existing on a planet designated, the Forum. In its infancy, the inhabitants of the Forum were single cell nanomachines, evolution and adaptation made them robotic abstract formulated beings that now wished only to perfect their world and better themselves. The introduction of VGer, a space probe that crash landed on the Forum, revised their programing. They wanted to learn. Finding VGer to be a kindred spirit, the beings of the Forum modified VGer so that it could accomplish its purpose of learning all that was learnable and return that knowledge to the creator. Accomplishing this mission VGer brought back sentience gleamed from it's traversal back to Earth and a realization and intuition of surmising irrational elements and complex, non-scientific concepts in relay to answering unanswerable questions, or think beyond logic. VGer brought these elements after merging with Humanity. With these thoughts, this now driving passion, the residents of the Forum now understood ambition beyond their means. They began to assimilate worlds, correct the flaws they saw in VGer's revelation; calling it the Harbinger. They became a consciousness, forming a collective, and became the Borg. With their numbers swelling beyond their means, the C-Consciousness was augmented, adapted to fit the design. A Queen was spawned, several as the numbers grew more and more. Eventually, the Borg had assimilated countless worlds and their numbers reached heights beyond their expectations. Still however, the quest for perfection continued unabated and, much like their Harbinger, the Borg found the origins. Earth. The Borg King "I am Sion…, I am your King." :- Sion "Xatrix" Logan addressing the Collective, S02Ep03 Home The Borg had many setbacks in the 2370s including the crippling blow that nearly destroyed them when the hive mine was destabilized by the introduction of a neurolytic pathogen virus. This virus set to destroy the organic of the race, fundamentally crippling its very foundation. A slew of Queens and Drones were severed in 2378 by this infection dealt by Voyager's Captain Katherine Janeway. In order to save a small part of the brood, the Harbinger severed it's connection with the bulk of the Collective's Consciousness, feeling the deaths of trillions of drones and hundreds of Queens. The Borg were changed by the neurolytic pathogen, having to adapt the species into an optimized version of itself. No longer could they allow the organic to be the mainstay, and, as such, the structure and physiology of the race had become more machine than man. The first Queen of this new race, birthed from the Harbinger itself, was the start of this new brood. Once again, the race had to start from scratch; though, this time with the capacity of learning from their mistake, their reign swept cleanly. The system of Artemis, in the Delta Quadrant became the home, the planets and their populous changed to fit the design of the new Borg. Ships were fabricated, an armada constructed, and the venture approach of spreading their reign further began to be conceived. However, the Harbinger sensed something. A familiarity within the construct memories of the Collective's lifeblood. Another kindred spirit, another Harbinger. The Queen of the new brood was tasked with finding this new Harbinger, leading her to Artemis IV, a forgone planet on the edge of its livelihood. The Borg descend, searching the landscape of the dying planet, finding Sion "Xatrix" Logan. Like VGer, Sion was mended, his arguments fixed, his damage repaired. However, unlike VGer, Sion lashed out, crushing the Borg Queen's head before the Harbinger's very presence. When the Queen died, the Collective Consciousness was again destabilized; the Harbinger reverting to its new purpose of stabilizing and mending. Before this could happen however, Sion assimilated himself into the Consciousness, becoming the new ruler of the Collective, he had become the Borg King. Under his rule, the Borg became more militaristic, becoming more consumed in strengthening the Collective rather than expanding it. Those that the Borg King thought were weak were severed from the Collective, left to die in the abandonment from the C-Consciousness (orphan virus). Worlds were created, not assimilated, new complexes connected in vast arrays of interconnected infrastructure, modules, and grids as far as the eye could see with deadly ships and dreadnoughts patrolling. When their strength matched their numbers, Sion proclaimed war against the quadrant, initiating the Machine Wars. Resistance The Machine Wars began in the Delta Quadrant, the Borg King's hand guiding the Collective in a conquest of the weak and the assimilation of the strong. Through these methods, the Borg became even that much more powerful. Most of the Quadrant's strongest civilizations faltered to the Collective's might while others who had lost everything dissolved into quarreling bickering self serving factions, the Syndicate being the most dominate as the War continued. However, another faction, rising from a planetary system long since abandoned by the Borg held resolve to combat the Collective's might. Under leadership of Gabriel "Matrix" Logan, the Resistance made their first strike upon the Borg, the Liberated Drones abandoned by Sion became the foot solders of Gabriel's army; again, the universe was the battlefield for the feuding brothers. This offset of focus for the Borg, quelled the war against the quadrant, Sion's hatred for his brother was enough for the smaller pockets that had survived his onslaught to make shelter and fortify their positions in hiding of the eventual return of the Collective. The Borderlands were established, a safe harboring for any and all who wanted it; though later it became the main trade center for what was left of the quadrant. Both the Resistance and the Collective lost many, their numbers and might dwindling. At the cusp of his defeat however, Gabriel "Matrix" Logan seceded from the battle, his brother's war and the outcry of innocence lost, the Resistance withdrew. With his strength wained, Sion's efforts of conquest held and peace, all be it war-torn, returned to the quadrant. The Prophet and the Legacy "Do you want to return Home?" :- Generation Six Nanomachines asking a question to Eternity's nanomachine compliment, S02Ep03 Home The Delta Quadrant was quiet, the Borg Collective slinking back to their conquered territory, which had subsequently expanded to nearly 3/4's of the quadrant. The Borg King sat still, waited for the opportunity to continue. Much like the Harbinger who had sensed him, Sion had began to grow attuned to the slight variations of consciousness that mirrored in origin with the Collective's. The Borg King sense the Prophet and the Legacy, feeling upon their consciousness through the span of the galaxy. In waiting for this, Sion set a trap, destroying the penal colony on Holly 7, planting a sleeper drone and waited patiently. When the Eternity reached Holly 7, they found a single survivor, Remar Zenker, the Borg King's sleeper drone. Upon activation of the nanomachines inside his bloodstream, Zenker became a walking infection, a tank that had simply one objective of reprograming the nanomachines onboard the Eternity. When it's mission was accomplished, Zenker's purposed finished, the Eternity was brought before the Borg and their King. Meeting with Captain James Maxwell, alone face to face in V'Ger's amphitheater, Sion proposed a truce, knowing full well that Maxwell, with his connection to the Legacy, could spearhead the Collective towards their destiny, ruling over the chaos that was humanity as was foretold. Denying the offer of truce, the Borg King assimilated the Captain, establishing a neural link with not only the Legacy but also Eternity. As such, Maxwell was used as a weapon, turning the Eternity against it's crew, when Commander Colin Byrne also refused the offer of an alliance. A mass murder of the Eternity's crew began as the ship's systems and even it's EMH (Doctor Doug Harris) ruthlessly slaughtered nearly all the crew compliment. A handful of the ship's personnel managed to escape when Janelle James connected with James Maxwell, pulling him out of Sion's hold long enough for the Captain to make his swan song, sacrificing himself to buy the crew time to escape; giving them hints to finding both the means of escaping V'Ger through the Intrepid Class Hope and Gabriel "Matrix" Logan. Hope escaped V'Ger and the Borg King's clutches with help from Gabriel, who had also sensed the consciousness of the Prophet and the Legacy, taking a small fleet of Resistance ships to investigate. The situation dovetailed into a rescue operation as Logan took Hope in tractor through a Transwarp Hub, the stress to much for the damaged Intrepid, casting it and the crew far away from the Collective but lost in a war-torn Delta Quadrant. Sion recovered from the explosion ignited by James Maxwell, gathering enough insight to know that his brother had saved what was left of the Eternity's crew. War Reignites "My God…, it's the Eternity." :- Captain Rick Barlow seeing the Eternity destroy Churn, S02Ep08 Paradise Lost The Collective, despite finding setback with the Prophet had captured strength with the assimilation of the Cerberus Class Eternity, its technology added to the Borg strength. In this way, Sion refitted his war machines, his fleet and his drones. The Eternity itself became the vanguard for the Collective's endeavor for conquest. With the modified strength of the ship and its ability to travel through tachyon portals, the Eternity and the Collective Fleet swept the rest of the Delta Quadrant. Crushing the Syndicate and destroying the Borderlands. The Eternity led the assault on Churn and the Resistance. Combining the assault, the planet was destroyed; however though the actions of Hope and crew a small portion of the Resistance, including its leader, were able to escape into the Underspace Corridors. Culture The Borg have no thoughts of individuality, they are a collective consciousness known as C-Consciousness, linked to the Borg King. They hold it as sacred as religion and physically need the connection in order to regulate their processing (regeneration cycles, purposes, etc.). To be without the C-Consciousness would be a death sentence as the nanomachines are regulated by this connection. Rejection, pain, and even madness can follow before eventual death of a drone. A avid respect for all intelligence, and perfection the Borg consider the collected thoughts and order of chaos to be their primary goal. To seek perfection and eliminate all that isn't, keeping what strength they find and weeding out the weak. They no longer harbor to correct the flaws with assimilation, under the Borg King, they consider everything that doesn't fall in line with flawlessness to be simply infection and to be cut out like a cancer. They hold a unrivaled animosity towards humanity, insinuating that it is the reason the universe is flawed and rarely choose to keep them within their own. Through the showing of the Legacy, the Borg have understood their ultimate purpose, to be the catalyst in the mankind's next evolution, to perfect order by implementation of machine. In the new order of the Collective, there is a single ruler, the King, wherein before the Collective would establish as many Queens as their numbers demanded, now the many different groups of drones are commanded by specific purposes that are associatively primal and easily undeterred by outside influences. A drone is commanded by this purpose whether it be to regulate itself as a maintenance drone, command a ship, or isolate itself as a sleeper unit to infect, the purpose is what every drone seeks and that purpose is given directly by the Borg King. The Borg have a semblance in spirituality, though, its not thought upon as faith but actual truth. They understand that the origins of their purpose stems from the lifeblood, the nanomachines that give them life and a means to fulfill that purpose. The blood carries not only the purpose originally planned before the evolution into the Borg, but the memories of that which came before and what will come for them. A very few of the Collective understand this, the Borg King being one such individual. In this connection with the balance is a sense of another consciousness that cannot be understood but merely anticipated. Through this they term elements that signify a great change in their brood, wielding terms like the Harbinger, the Conduit, and the Source in their vocabulary when discussing terminology with the subject of faith and the future of their purpose. Technology Nanomachines The very nature of the Borg stems from their lifeblood, which teams with tiny microscopic machines, nanomachines, which have been with the Borg even before they had evolved. These cell sized machines, much like humanity, were the building blocks and the starting stage of the Borg Collective, growing and evolving over the course of their lifetimes. Nanomachines have adapted machine and human tissue in construct to Borg design since the beginning, and continue to be used as a means of beginning the process of assimilation. It has been learned by means of interpretation from both the Legacy and the Harbinger that the nanomachines cater not only adaptations of previous generations, but also memories. In retaining the past, the nanomachines have grown into a consciousness under-seeded to the Borg C-Consciousness which very few have grown to understand or communicate with. Sion "Xatrix" Logan understood its existence, but it was not until the introduction of James Maxwell and the Legacy that the Borg King could interpret this consciousness. Through evolution, several generations of nanomachines have evolved from the base construct, the Source: * First Generation - Known as the Source, this is what the Borg were before they evolved into the second generation * Second Generation- The introduction of humanity and the ability to process complexity outside of logical reasoning. This is the stage where they evolved into the Borg for the task of correcting the flaws in their species and the species of others * Third Generation - The first Queen born gave order to the Collective's consciousness, introducing the developmental stages of the C-Consciousness * Fourth Generation - The C-Consciousness grows, memories nested in the evolved nanomachine began to be interpreted. This spawns a seeded consciousness of the Collective which gives it the ability to project and sense beyond the confines of relays and waypoints. * Fifth Generation - Romulan modification to neural interfacing with the C-Consciousness allowing a single person to connect with the seeded consciousness. Through this, the Prophet connects with the Legacy, giving revelation of the memories held in the nanomachines' cache data, further extrapolating and interpretation of the nested memories. * Sixth Generation - Modification of the Fifth Generation's directive, and commanded by Sion "Xatrix" Logan. This holds open the avenue to the seeded consciousness of the nanomachines and funnels it through a single pathway. In this configuration, Queens and supplemental pockets of regulatory regeneration is funneled through the command of a single source within the Borg. * Seventh Generation - The nanomachines second evolution since humanity's introduction. To combat the Borg King, the nanomachines evolve, not needing the C-Consciousness but rather are self serving using the previous development of the seeded consciousness as the primary method of both communication and regulations of commands and further assessing means of adapting. Spacecraft Borg vessels are decentralized with no distinct features of command or living quarters. Each ship is collective operated by a compliment of drones under direct control of the C-Consciousness. The Borg disregard aesthetics in consideration of starship design, so most basic ships take the form of shapes such as spheres, cubes, and are made from tritanium alloy. Borg Ships are capable of regeneration from damage and adapting to offensive weapons fire. Neural connection to the hive mind is supplement by a nexus core which is connected centrally that links the drones and ship to the C-Consciousness. Additional warp cores and transwarp cores are fitted to each ship promising greater speeds and opening transwarp conduits for even greater travel. When critically damaged, Borg ships tend to be sacrificial, activating the ship's self destruct protocol before establishing a crash course into hostile targets, if any are present. Purpose drives ships that are above general use. Assault ships are elongated, making it easier to fit greater weapon systems and larger firing arcs as well as munitions and personnel. Destroyers cater cargo space for ships harbored inside while Harvesters are massive diamond shaped vessels that cater the capacity to assimilate entire star systems and establish Hubs for Borg colonization. There are two ships that are distinctive from the rest. The Eternity and V'Ger, both primarily used by Sion "Xatrix" Logan. These ships are generally used as grand stands to show the Collective's might and, to that end, the interiors are generally extravagant and made to frighten those that have the unfortunate cause to be within them.